In May of 2019, a team of GEBCO-Nippon Foundation Fellows won the international competition Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE for deep-sea exploration technology. The team members lived in different countries and could not work together in one location, which was a challenge in practical terms. Even so, their “diversity” proved to be a factor in winning the competition. In entering the competition, the team also had a goal beyond just winning the event. All of the prize money is expected to be used to achieve the goals set in the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project to completely map the world’s entire sea floor topography by 2030.
Selected Papers No.25(p.17)

A rich ecosystem occurs in the twilight zone of coral reefs, at depths from 30-40 to 150 meters. This area is considered an important refugium protecting corals from extremely high ocean temperatures at shallow depths causing often fatal bleaching . However, can these deep coral reefs actually act as refugia and contribute as larval source for declining shallow coral reef recovery? This article introduces our deep reef studies in Okinawa to explore these possibilities.

Olympics committee has published its sustainable sourcing code for seafood products which are served during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in June 2018. One of the ways to ensure the sustainability of seafood products is to have the certification schemes and labeled products distributed in the Japanese domestic markets. However, there remain a variety of obstacles to for these certification schemes and labelled product to spread; it is sincere hope of the author that the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will provide opportunities for the consumers to be better acquainted with these initiatives.